


The Girlfriend Experience

by rageprufrock



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-03
Updated: 2010-06-03
Packaged: 2017-10-09 21:41:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/91894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rageprufrock/pseuds/rageprufrock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While it's not like Dean hasn't had a couple of truly regrettable hit-and-runs in his sexual history, this is probably the saddest fucking thing that has ever happened to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Girlfriend Experience

While it's not like Dean hasn't had a couple of truly regrettable hit-and-runs in his sexual history, this is probably the saddest fucking thing that has ever happened to him.

He says, "You've been spying on Earth since the beginning of time and you don't know how to — "

"I was stationed on Earth," Castiel interrupts mulishly, perched on the edge of the motel mattress looking flustered and wronged and generally pissed at the universe.  "And Our Father did not create me at the origin of all creation."

"Oh, _now_ he's your father," Dean retorts, putting his hands on his hips in a way he's going to deny having done at the end of this inevitable shitshow. 

Cas shuts his eyes.  "Can we not talk about _Our Father_ while we are discussing my genitals?"

"I wish we weren't fucking discussing your genitals at all!" Dean yells at him.

"Well if human penises weren't so unruly, we wouldn't have to!" Cas yells back, red cheeked and belligerent. "I was so distracted by its tumescence earlier today I could barely function!"

Dean covers his face with his hands. He's already been to hell undeservedly, this shit is just salt in his gaping wound.

"Ugh, fine, what? What?" Dean asks, even though he sort of already knows where this conversation is going and its zip code is 90201-fuck my fucking life. "What do you want me to do do about it?"

Castiel's indignant fury deflates, and his whole body slumps. "Make it _stop_."

"Dude, I'm sorry to break it to you, but your dick is just going to keep on keepin' on," Dean tells him, not unkindly, because he can imagine that this is super fucked up from Cas's perspective: you take a vessel; you get blown up in the vessel; you come back in the meatsuit only to find it's sort of yours, roommate evacuated to one lonely heaven or another. Dean waves a hand vaguely at Castiel's midsection. "You're just going to have to do some crisis management, okay?"

Dean seriously thinks Cas is going to throw something at him for a second before, seething, Castiel asks in carefully over-pronounced syllables, "What do you mean?"

"Clean the pipes?" Dean asks. "Jerk off?"

Cas continues to look blankly unmoved.

"Jesus Christ — _manually stimulate your penis_," Dean clarifies.

"I've tried that," Cas argues. "It was ineffectual, humiliating, and left me sore."

Dean says, "What the fuck were you _doing?_" before he shakes his head furiously, holding up his hands, shouting, "No, wait, hold up, don't fucking tell me, I don't actually want to know, okay?" and watching Castiel's jaw click shut.

Cas just hunches over, curled in over himself, and it's a petulantly human gesture, like wanting cheeseburgers or sleeping or being susceptible to begging that it makes something in Dean's chest hurt.

"I honestly don't know what to do," Cas admits, sounding lost and far away from home, and Dean knows right then — God damn it — that he's going to do it.

"God damn it," Dean says, and looking left and right like anyone might overhear them, but Sam's out at the town hall photocopying land deeds at five cents a page and he's got not immediate excuses not to man up for this. He bites out, "All right: we do this, you don't ask about this, and we don't talk about it, got it?"

"Got what?" Cas asks.

Dean locks the motel room door, puts a chair under the doorknob and hits the lights. He ignores Castiel when he asks, "Dean, what are you doing?" and draws the curtains shut.

"I thought I told you not to ask about this," Dean tells him, easy, and he goes over to the bed, starts plucking at Cas's trench. "Come on, let's get this off."

Cas frowns at him, but complies, letting Dean strip him out of the coat, take off his jacket, undo his tie, and out of habit Dean thought he'd forgotten by now, he folds most of it halfway and lays it over the back of a chair, smoothing his hand down the cheap fabric before turning back to Castiel.

"Do you wanna lie back? Or do you want to watch?" Dean asks.

"What are you doing, Dean," Cas says, and it's flatly not a question.

Dean says, "Okay, so you're going to watch."

And Cas does, like always, quiet, with his head tilted to one side as Dean gets up close to him, gets right up in his space, sliding up Castiel's side and putting one arm around the span of his back. Dean keeps his hands on Cas like Cas is a nervous horse, keeping him calm, letting him know by touch that it's okay. Dean says, "Don't worry, just watch, okay?" and slides his hand down, down Castiel's side, tugs the the tails of Castiel's shirt out of his trousers.

"Dean?" Cas asks, his voice is scratchy now, hot and wet against Dean's shoulder, where he's looking at Dean with wide, surprised eyes.

"Just watch," Dean says, and slips his fingers under the waistband of the pants, flicks open the button, smooths his fingers into the flap of the blue boxers to scratch his nails through the wiry hair at the base of Castiel's dick.

This time, when Cas says, "Dean," it's all urgency, a little hotter and touched with a delicious shiver of confusion, like Cas didn't know what he wanted except that he wanted, and Dean doesn't know why that's hot, only that it is, and Castiel fists the hand closes to Dean into the hem of his shirt, grabbing him tight. "_Dean_."

"Just let me help you out," Dean murmurs, and he's gentle, tugs Cas, half-hard already, out of the opening in his shorts and thumbs the head, squeezes his fist around Castiel's dick nice and easy. "You see what I'm doing?"

Cas isn't, obviously, because he's panting hard and staring at the side of Dean's face instead, eyes blue and awed. Dean says, "Cas, look at my hands, okay?" and Cas does, chin jerking back down just in time to see Dean reach his other hand around, close over the hot weight of Castiel's balls still in the boxers and roll them in his palm.

"See what I'm doing?" Dean asks, murmuring it into Castiel's cheek, feeling his mouth move against Cas's ear.  He hasn't done this for anybody but himself in a long time, but the mechanics are the same, and he loosens his fist now, stroking Cas slow and easy. "See how I'm touching you?"

"Yes," Cas gasps, and Dean can feel his muscles pulling tight, feel Cas's hips jerking into Dean's wrist.  "Dean, _Dean_."

"Hey, hey," Dean says, soothing, just a rumble near Castiel's ear.  "Just watch, okay?  See how easy it is?  Feels good, right?"

Dean tucks himself in more tightly along Castiel's back, pressing against the broad lines of his back. Dean settles his chin over Cas's shoulder so he's not just navigating by touch, so that his cheek is pressed along Castiel's, too, to ground him, to keep him steady.  Dean's out of practice, but it's like getting on a tandem bike with a twitchy straight guy, some nervy, control-freak queer — Dean's run the gamut.

"It wasn't like this when I did it," Castiel gasps, and he injects just enough bitchy irritation into it that Dean snaps out of doing this by rote and huffs laughing a little, leans more heavily into Castiel because Cas can take it, Dean's always been able to lean on him.

"You were probably being all resentful and shitty about it," Dean laughs.  "It's not going to work great if you're not enjoying it."

Cas says, "_Ugh_," like he's thoroughly sick of human bullshit, period, and he leans his head back, drops it against Dean's shoulder and rolls his hips up into Dean's hand, and Dean doesn't bother to harass him about paying attention.  Instead, he watches for himself, greedy, watches the way his fist closes around Castiel's dick, studies how pretty it is, red and going purple with blood at the head — Jimmy's cleanly cut like like a good Midwestern boy — at how come is pearling at the head, making Dean's fingers sticky as he pulls a little harder.

"Okay," Dean says, and his voice comes out as a rasp.  He turns so he's murmuring it right into the rough stubble on Cas's face, and he doesn't have to, but he wants to.  "Audience participation time, you ready?"

Cas makes an impatient noise in the back of his throat.  "I told you I wasn't — "

"I'm gonna walk you through it," Dean promises, and then he lets go of Cas's cock, which gets him a pissed off noise, now, and Cas saying, "_Dean_," like he's about deep six him into the third circle again.  Dean promises, "Hold up, just wait a second," and debates what he's about to do for two seconds before he holds that hand up to Cas's mouth and says, "Get it wet."

Cas makes that complaining noise again instead of answering, or doing anything, and Dean's not full of shit enough to waste time wondering why that's hot, so he just says, "Come on, lick it, get it nice and wet for me."  Cas does, hesitating, shifting restlessly, and Dean squeezes his balls tightly in warning, mutters, "Come on, wet — wetter the better," and he tries not to think about how good it feels to see Cas's pink, pink tongue getting his palm slick, getting his skin wet, about what Cas must be tasting on Dean's hand.

"That's good," Dean croaks, sounding like he's been crawling around in the desert, dying of thirst.  Maybe he has.  "You watching?"

Cas leans his head back on Dean's shoulder again, and blatantly lies, "_Yes_, Dean, please — " and Dean says, "Okay, okay," and closes his fist around Cas's dick again, saying, "Pay attention, man," and goes from zero to sixty again, the Formula 1 of handjobs, Dean Winchester special.

Castiel makes a noise like he's dying, so Dean figures he's doing it right, just hushes him, "Hey, hey, just take it, let me help you out," puts his other hand low on Cas's belly to hold him down, hold his hips steady, and jerks him fast and hard and furiously rough.  Cas is dripping wet now, come leaking steadily and Dean's hand is filthy with it, the noise of skin and skin and slick filling in the spaces between Cas gasping, "Dean," and "Please," and "oh, oh, oh," and Dean telling him, close to his year, "Yeah, just like that — you feel that?  Jesus, you're getting so fucking wet."

And Cas grabs Dean's other wrist, the one that isn't pulling hard, whipping up and down on his cock.  He curls his fingers around the base of Dean's hand and he starts gasping, gulping for breaths, chest heaving, and Dean likes it, likes the look of it, so he leans in, closes his teeth on the skin at the curve of Castiel's neck, under the tired collar of his button-up shirt and _bites_, squeezing his fist at the base of Cas's dick to keep him from coming, wrenching a moan out of him.

"I want," Cas starts, and trails off, clawing at Dean's hand, the other twisting where he's clutching his shirt.  "Dean — I want — "

Dean chuckles, filthy, into Cas's neck, kisses it in apology and says, "I know what you want, baby, hold on, I'mma give it to you, don't worry."

"Yes," Cas agrees, "yes," he says, and Dean slides his other hand off of Cas's stomach, slides it down into his shorts again, rolling Castiel's sac in his palm a beat and listening to Cas's panting.  "Okay, watch my hands, Cas," he says.

"Just — !" Cas protests.

"Watch my hands," Dean mutters, and he slides his fingers up, catching the slick wetness on Cas's dick and slips them back down, behind Castiel's balls, until he's sliding them urgent and pressing against the smooth skin back there, ghosting against Cas's opening and he says, "Come on, baby, come on, come for me, spill it out all over my fist, you've got so much saved in there, sweetheart, come on, give it up, baby, give it up for me," and Cas does, coming like it's been punched out of him, with a gasp and a jerk and getting come in wet stripes down his shirt, all over Dean's fingers, dripping on the bed.

"Dean," Cas groans, going limp like all the bones have been pulled out of him, and Dean's careful with him, careful when he just strokes Cas slowly, in a loose fist, watching Cas shake and watching more come bubble out, white and thick and fucking nasty. They're both a total fucking mess, and the pants Cas is wearing is a total goner.  Cas moans again, "Dean," questions and questions in the spaces between syllables.

"I got you," Dean promises, pressing a kiss to Cas's shoulder.  "See?  I told you — I've got you, Cas."

Cas's breath sounds fragile, shuddery, and he tilts his head until his forehead is pressed against the curve of Dean's chin, slides his hand — curious — down the length of Dean's forearm, down the side of his hand, until he's stroking the pads of his fingers over the mess, careful over the skin of his cock, rubbing jizz into Dean's hand, murmuring, "I didn't know it was like that."

"Well," Dean says, quiet, "you were doing it wrong."

Cas laughs a little, sounding wrecked, and he turns his head, eyes catching Dean's, and he says, "Dean," again, and Dean thinks about how close they are, how if he just leans forward a little bit, they can —

And that's when Sam kicks down the door.

***

Even beyond the fact that Cas had flown into a wild panic and locked himself into the bathroom, Dean was never in a million years going to win a fucking fight with Sam while his dick was furiously tenting his jeans, anyway, so he just lets Sam scream all his mortified, violated, girlish screams and talk about all his mortified, violated, girlish feelings.

"I just — and you!" Sam says, and then he clutches at his hair. "I mean, I had no idea!"

"You're still a virgin if you just play with yourself, Samantha," Dean assures him. "You like, can explore the hills and valleys of your body and still wear white at your wedding."

Sam just stares at him, earnest. "Are you and Castiel in love?" he asks.

"Oh my fucking God," Dean says, and goes to sleep in the Impala.

A little past eleven, when it starts getting cold in the backseat with just his jacket and lingering, existential what-the-fuck-ery to keep him warm, the backseat door jerks open and Cas says, "Dean, move over," and sits on his legs.

"Dude, seriously?" Dean asks, pushing himself up and wrapping his coat more tightly around himself. But he's losing this argument, too, sort of, because makes room and lets Cas sit down, clutching his trenchcoat around himself. "Don't you know anything about the whole, don't make eye contact, everybody's really fucking embarrassed part of sex?"

Cas says, "No," and Dean has to give the guy that one. He'd fucked up _masturbating_, the etiquette of charitable handjobs is probably a little beyond him.

"Your brother kept trying to talk to me about my sexual enlightenment," Castiel explains, and the places where their bodies touch are warm and easy and Dean doesn't blame himself for leaning into them, for tucking up close. When it comes to creature comforts, he's pretty shameless. "Then he wanted to discuss my intentions toward you."

Dean doesn't bother rousing a new wave of mortification for that. "Did you tell him to fuck off?" he asks.

"I told him you would tell me to tell him that," Cas says, prim.   
 "And then you ran away," Dean snickers.

"To the car, where you were already hiding," Cas points out.

Right. "So, what, is he planning our wedding in there now?"

Instead of answering that, Cas just looks at him for a long time and says, "You were very good. At that."

"You have got absolutely zero baseline for comparison," Dean says, but his mouth crooks up at the corner because he _does_ have a baseline for comparison, and that was pretty fucking outstanding.

Cas nods, shy. "Thanks."

Dean shrugs. "Don't mention it." Seriously. "What are friends for."

And Cas pins him with such a wide-open, curious look then that Dean coughs, has to look away, and pulls his jacket more tightly around him, looking for anything to distract himself.

"Are you cold?" Castiel asks, and before Dean answers, he feels the heavy drape of something warm and soft and _moving_ over his shoulder. But when he turns, he doesn't see anything, just massive shadows, filling up the already shadowed space in the car, and he asks, "Cas, what the — " before he's pushed, gently, tipped into Castiel's side, nudged into position, feathers brushing his cheek, like sunbeams trailing across his skin.

Dean reaches out, touches the fringe of something he can't see: it's alive, and fidgety, and when he strokes his palms down the invisible wall around him, he feels pinions out of line and frayed edges, and Dean can imagine what Castiel's feathers must look like — disheveled, unsettling, just like Cas.

"You still have them," Dean says, because Cas sleeps now, he hurts now. Last week, when Dean had been a moron and cut himself something awful by accident, Cas had only looked at Dean with something that might have been regret, and listened as Sam had explained how to bandage a cut. "Your wings."

Cas pulls Dean in closer, and Dean goes. It's warm under Cas's wing, and smells like that last week before summer, anticipation and the promise of heat humming through the air.

"For now," Cas says, and Dean can't do anything for the hurt in Cas's voice, either, so he just curls up close to him in the backseat, runs one hand through the short hair at the base of Castiel's neck until Cas says, "They're my wings, they've always been a part of me."

"Yeah," Dean agrees, feeling stupid. He doesn't know what to say.

Cas's wings draw in closer, and Dean goes with them, safe inside. "They shouldn't be anybody's to take," he says, quiet, brittle.

Dean hates it, watching life and the apocalypse and the consequences of them scrape away at Cas, force new definitions on him. All he can say is, "Cas, I'm sorry," because he's useless for stuff like this, small against the hugeness of everything, of what Cas is, of this bullshit destiny everybody seems to think is his to own.

***

Dean figures, after that, that Cas has taken Dean's lead and is routinely seeing to his own not-so-junkless-related needs.

When he's not viciously repressing the memory of the entire incident, he's fending off Sam's attempts to engage him in an open, nonjudgmental discussion about Dean's latest relationship that usually employs keywords like, "acceptance," and phrases like, "you know, Dean, a lot of people don't realize they aren't one hundred percent heterosexual until later in life." Dean had considered — briefly — telling Sam the whole, unvarnished truth about his deeply non-exclusively heterosexual sexual history, but then, thankfully, Castiel had showed up in the backseat of the Impala looking busted and asking if they had hamburgers.

"You realize that burgers come from stores, right?" Dean asks, bored and watching Cas eat his third bacon cheeseburger. At the counter, there're at least two waitresses staring at them in undisguised horror, and Sam, from the opposite side of the diner booth, looks about two seconds away from giving them both a hug and getting a rainbow tattoo on his face to show how fucking proud he is.

"Burgers also cost money," Castiel says in between bites, mopping ketchup off his face. "Which I don't have and do not know how to obtain."

Dean snorts. "Great, we're your sugar daddies — that is shit sad, Cas."

"Oh, Jesus," Sam mutters, like he just cannot believe his brother is talking about this in front of his prom date.

"What's a sugar daddy?" Cas asks, and looking hopeful, he opens his mouth again. Dean cuts in, saying:

"_No_ more burgers for you. And you don't need to know about sugar daddies."

Overlapping him, Sam explains, "They buy you stuff in exchange for sex."

"Ugh, _Sam_," Dean pleads, and Sam studiously ignores him while Cas pulls a serious, thoughtful face, ignoring the last of his fries.

"...Dean is buying me these cheeseburgers," he says.

"Fuck," Dean says, and punches Sam in the arm. "Cas, not the same thing."

"Right," Cas agrees, looking conflicted. "Because _you_ provided the sex, correct?"

"Yeah, check please?" Dean asks, calling for the waitress.

Except the conversation doesn't end, the diner wasn't some vortex or hellmouth, and Dean finds himself having some sort of out of body experience listening to his little brother and his God damn fallen angel talking about their nonexistent sex life, Sam twisted around from the front seat, and every time he tries to interrupt or get them to cut it the fuck out, he gets twin angry, sad eyes.

Spitefully, Dean dispatches Sam to go get them a motel room, leaning against the sun-hot hood of the Impala next to Castiel, and he takes in the highway noise until he gets the courage to ask:

"So, hamburgers?"

Cas's face darkens. "Apparently, now in addition to sex and sleep, I want food."

"You _need_ food," Dean corrects. "You're still teleporting, though."

"I didn't know how much longer I'd be able to," Cas says, distant. "I wanted to — "

_Find you two, be where you and Sam were, see friendly faces_, all remains unspoken, but Dean's well versed in Castiel's silences at this point, and he responds with a nudge of his elbow, all easy welcome, no expectations, don't mention it. Dean is fluent in Sam, but he's conversational in Castiel now, too, he thinks he's learning all the nuance.

It's a moment, and it's a good one, until Sam lopes out of the motel office with two sets of jangling keys.

"_Fuck_ no," Dean says.

Sam gives Room 4B's keys to Cas. "Here you go," he says brightly, and runs off for 6F.

***

Except of course, if they have a room, then hell, they might as well use it, and they're about halfway into a re-run of Law &amp; Order: Special Victims Unit when Cas shifts, blushing uncomfortably, and Dean puts the television on mute, says, "Hey, wanna show me if you remember?" and they're off.

Dean's done a ton of seriously depraved stuff in his life, but making Cas jerk off for him is probably on his top ten, because Cas is so fucking awkwardly yearning about it, and every two seconds, he catches Dean's eye, like he wants directions, like he wants Dean to make sure he's doing it right — mostly like he wants Dean's hands on him instead of his own. Cas is stripped down to nothing, all his clothes abandoned in a heap by the bed, and Dean's being a fucking gentlemen about this, keeping himself at the foot of the bed, pants on, shirt buttoned, hands to himself.

Okay, except for the talking.

"Baby, you haven't been practicing at _all_," Dean rumbles at him.

Cas gulps, gasps, "Dean, please — Dean — "

"Cas, you gotta learn this stuff on your own," Dean chides, but he goes over, closes the space between them, and he relishes the way Cas's eyes get darker and darker when Dean goes down on his knees, in between Cas's thighs, curls a hand around Castiel's ankle.

Cas says, "I'm very new at this," earnest, and Dean smirks, slides his hands up Castiel's calves, settles his palms against the curve behind the joint, presses a kiss against the side of Cas's knee, murmurs, "Come on, you can do this."

And at that, Cas licks his palm — Dean hears himself say, "Yeah, baby, like that." — and closes it loosely around the base of his dick, experimental, and reaches his other hand down, to clutch at his sac. Dean tells him, "Okay, now, up and down, keep your hand tight, yeah, like that," as Cas starts stroking himself, up and down, and then Dean says, "Okay, here, you wanna — yeah, take your thumb, rub it right up along the bottom there, right, that's good, right there," and Cas does.

Dean's enjoying watching Cas jerk off more than he should, but he loves it, loves how red Cas's chest gets, loves watching come beading at the pretty, blood-flushed head of his cock, and Dean wants to lean forward, to taste, to run his tongue down the purple vein on the underside of Castiel's cock.

"I'm close," Cas gasps, and his hand is whipping up and down now, fast, twisting at the head, and Dean makes a note of that even though he's never going to get any practical opportunity to use that information. "Dean, I'm — "

"Yeah, that's good," he coos, soothing, and he reaches up along Cas's chest, scratches his fingers through the thin hair on Cas's chest, thumbs roughly over Cas's nipples. "Come on, I can see it, you're so fucking wet, Cas — come on, come for me, jerk it out for me," Dean murmurs, hot and wet and panting into Cas's thigh, and Cas does, groaning, "_Dean_," and "_yes_," and coming in long, wet stripes — one catching on Dean's cheek, down the side of his face.

Cas is saying, "Oh, Dean, sorry," voice hitching, and Dean freezes for a minute, because it's been a decade since he took it like that, messy spunk smeared over his mouth, dripping down his eyelashes, in his bangs, but he doesn't remember it turning him on like this, then. Then, Cas is saying, "Oh, _oh_," because Dean's leaning forward, ghosting the words, "Cas, watch me, okay? You'll wanna be able to do this for someone someday," over Cas's thigh just before he closes his mouth over Castiel's cock.

He tastes like sweat and cotton, a little bitter, the sea-spray burn of salt, and Cas feels huge in Dean's mouth, hot and alive and Cas's whole body shakes under Dean's lips — his hands are coming up, knotting in Dean's hair, and Cas doesn't know not to tug, not to pull, and Dean's surprised he likes it, loves how wrecked Cas is — as Dean strokes his tongue down the length of him. He hums, quiet, happy, and he flattens his palms on the flare of Castiel's hips, sucks him down careful and thorough, because he's not going to push Dean away like this — this is something Dean can do for him.

Dean's mouth is soft, loose, easy, because he knows Cas must be sensitive right now, but he's careful to lick it up, tongue stroking Cas clean. He doesn't know why he's doing this now, he's never particularly liked doing it before, but it's Cas, and Cas is so new at this, so nakedly and honestly grateful and without any other baggage that Dean just wants to, wants to swallow him down, gag on it.

He pulls off slowly, lips pursing around the plummy head of Cas's dick, a little unwilling to let go, and Cas whispers, "Dean, let me," and that's how Dean finds himself on his back on a floral motel bedspread, Cas's fist tight around his cock and Cas's face buried in Dean's neck as Cas jerks him off, ruthlessly fast, and when Cas says, "Let me see you come," Dean does with a shout.

***

After that, Cas sticks close, rides in the backseat, and develops a fucking terrifying text message-based relationship with Bobby. Sam keeps getting two motel rooms — "What, the cost is going to break us?" he asks. "It's the end of the world, Dean." — and Dean keeps up his careful educational campaign.

"I have a headache," Cas tells him, curled up on the bed in a fetal position.

Okay, sometimes, Dean keeps up his careful educational campaign. Other nights, like tonight, Dean teaches Cas how to read the directions on the back of a bottle of Tylenol, and then when Cas looks at it with way too much interest, Dean has a series of traumatizing flashbacks — flash forwards? — to 2014 and takes the Tylenol away to dole out two pills and a glass of coppery-tasting tap water.

"Here," Dean says.

Cas makes a face at the pills. "They don't work," he complains. "Can I have a drink?"

Jesus Christ. Dean's life is destined to be lousy with addicts. He says, "No," and hands Cas the water and pills. "And yes they do. Take them."

Cas is learning about shaving and how to wear jeans. Dean bought him a pair of sneakers the other day, and Sam showed Cas how to fill the Impala with gas. Cas is learning that being wet is uncomfortable when the water is cold, but that heat is delightful, and that when he punches something, it hurts him, too. Cas is learning about how his neck is going to kill him if he doesn't sleep with the right number of pillows, and about how sometimes, things just hurt, things are just sore, how there's no explanation and no fix, and one time, he woke Dean up in the middle of the night because he felt terrified, nauseatingly terrified from a nightmare. "That's gonna happen sometimes, Cas," Dean had whispered at him, pulling him back down and putting a hand on the back of Cas's neck — wet with cold sweat. "That's part of being human." And Cas had choked something out about about how he fucking hated being human, that all he knew about it was being scared and being hurt, and Dean had kissed him, lingering and hot and languid until Cas had thought about other things instead and finally gone to sleep — leaving Dean up all night thinking about how he'd just _kissed_ Castiel.

Cas is also learning about catching colds and headaches and how to sulk.

"You keep that up, you're going to give Sam good competition for best bitchface, Cas," Dean tells him sweetly, and when Cas's glower only gets craggier and more hateful, Dean deep-sixes any plans for human interaction that evening in favor of calling it an early night. He sighs. "Right — get undressed."

They're in Nebraska and it's pissing down rain outside, bitter cold, and the heat in the motel room isn't working. The television is five stations of snow and PBS, so Dean leaves it on an Antiques Roadshow marathon and helps Cas get changed into a soft t-shirt and sweatpants, pulls him under the sheets and tucks the blankets up tight around him, leaves a glass on the table by his head.

"What's happening to me?" Cas moans, when Dean climbs under the sheets, too, dragging Cas in tightly against his chest. "Am I dying? Is this dying for humans?"

Dean laughs. "Dude, you have, _maybe_, the beginnings of a cold."

"I hate this," Cas mutters, and buries his face in Dean's neck.

"It's hard out there for a human, Cas," Dean tells him, smooths a hand down the line of Castiel's back, warm through the t-shirt, let's Cas slide a knee in between his legs. "Go to sleep. You'll feel better in the morning."

He does.

Well enough apparently that Dean wakes up to Cas's mouth, hot and wet and trailing down his chest, Cas's fingers tugging his boxers down. Cas is new at this like he's new at everything, but Dean loves it, every second of it, when Cas closes his mouth over the tip of his dick and sucks on him slowly, curious. He says, "Cas, that's perfect," and "Please, come on, just," and "Yeah, yeah," and Cas makes humming noises around him, content, and swallows him down as far as he can go, keeps a fist tight around the base of Dean's cock. Out of basic courtesy, Dean clutches his fingers tight in Cas's hair for a second, says, "Cas, I'm gonna — " but Cas ignores it in favor swiping his tongue under the head of Dean's cock and and trying to drink him all down.

He gets most of it, but his mouth is still messy and salt-bitter with come by the time Dean finishes swearing and coming. Dean pulls Cas up to lick it out of him, and Cas makes a rolling, satisfied noise in his chest when Dean does.

"Was that acceptable?" Cas asks, breathing out the syllables and vowels between lavish, drugging kisses, and Dean doesn't know where Cas learned this: to kiss so reckless and deep and easy — no hesitation.

He wants to say, _be careful with that_. He wants to say, _don't be so open for this_. He wants to say, _this is like water and wind and fire, and it could hurt you, so be sure_, but he doesn't, he just lets Cas pin him to the bed, heavy over him, solid to the touch and ever unbreakable, still more even though he's less, now.

"It was great, Cas," Dean promises him, sinking deeper and deeper into the bed, Cas moving and hot and comforting, pressing him into the sheets, and there's an easiness to this Dean hasn't known a lot, maybe ever.

"Good," Castiel breathes, in between kisses, "great."

And Dean doesn't want to ruin it, to interrupt this with telling Cas it's not always like this, that it's not always so easy. Cas will figure that out eventually, the way everybody does, but until then and right now between them, he doesn't want to talk about it, think about how eventually he's going to have to watch Cas touch someone else like this, so Dean just curls a leg over Cas's thigh instead, greedy for every possible first time.

Sam leaves them alone until noon, at which point he sticks his head in, makes a face at the state of the sheets, and says, "Guys, seriously."

Dean throws a pillow at him.

"Mature," Sam says, sneering.

"That's crusted in jizz, by the way," Dean says helpfully, and Cas laughs into his shoulder as Sam shrieks like a girl and disappears out the door, shouting, "_Ugh_, gross! _Dean!_"

***

Most of the end of the world is boring, actually. It's just all dread and waiting for Lucifer to date-rape your little brother, and in between marathon — and usually futile — research sessions with Bobby and Sam and Cas, they exorcise a half-dozen people, do four salt-and-burns, and Cas finds a mermaid.

"A _mermaid?_" Sam says, in totally undignified delight.

Dean, from where he's bandaging up the ragged, half-moon bite on Castiel's thigh, stares at Sam in undisguised disgust. "Dude, _really?_"

Sam at least looks contrite at that. "Sorry — I mean, I've just read a lot of lore."

"She tried to chew off my leg. She did not have red hair," Cas tells him, pained, and clutching at Dean's shoulder. Dean says, "Hey, sorry, Cas," and Cas shakes his head when Dean pulls the bandage tight and adds, "And she didn't sing. And did not have a friends who were a crab, a flounder, and a Scuttle."

"Actually, Scuttle was just his name, he was — " Sam says, and Dean cuts in with:

"_You showed him the Little Mermaid?_"

As punishment, Dean makes Sam find dinner and takes the opportunity to show Cas a real God damn movie, and by the time Sam returns with lo mein and General Tso's Chicken and wonton soup, John McClane is well underway fucking shit up.

Cas is half-asleep on Dean's shoulder by the end of the movie, and Sam looks over Cas's dark mess of hair and says, "This is probably really fucked up, but I'm really happy for you two, you know?"

"Sam, seriously," Dean tells him, pained.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Sam apologizes, smirking. "Was that feelings? Do you have a rash?"

From Dean's shoulder, Cas says, "Both of you, shut the fuck up," and after the shock wears off, Dean decides it's the best, most amazing God damn thing that has ever happened, and no amount of sulking Sam does is going to rub the shine off of that moment. Ever.

"We've corrupted him," Sam mourns. "We _ruined an angel_. We _ruin everything._"

"Own it, Sammy," Dean counsels. "It's our only real inheritance."

Sometime not too long after Cas's brief, melodramatic brush with almost having a cold and subsequently almost being eaten by a mermaid, Dean is fucking savaged by a half-dozen vampires. By the time Cas and Sam find him — in a fucking shed, why is it always a shed? — he's lost a pint of blood and he's woozy, being held against the wall and blacking out, some furiously hot, dark-haired vampire chick sucking him dry.

"Little help," Dean thinks he says, and his last cogent memory is of Cas's eyes, looking like someone was about to get their ass seriously, seriously smote, and Sam shouting, "Get the fuck off of him!"

"Actually, I think you said something like, mergh," Sam tells him later.

"Fuck you, no I didn't," Dean protests.

Cas is painstakingly bandaging the curve of Dean's neck, letting Sam hold Dean up in bed, sitting behind him against the headboard of the mattress because the act of being upright is fucking exhausting, and Dean had kept sliding down the pillows they propped up for him. Cas's hands are shaking, and he's overly attentive with the cotton and alcohol, with the gauze, constantly asking, "Is this too much pressure?" and Dean wants to tell Cas that he's _fine_, that this isn't his first time at the Bit By A Vampire Rodeo, but when he'd tried to earlier Sam — fucking douchebag — had pinched him, hard, on the thigh, and given him that You're Not Being Emotionally Intuitive Here, Dean look Dean hates.

It's fucked up how resigned Dean is to being creeped on, because he ends up falling asleep like a ton of bricks hit him despite the fact that Sam has taken up a spot at one of the ugly motel chairs and Cas is sitting on the edge of the bed, literally staring at him.

"You guys are so _messed up_," he mumbles, already half-gone. "Stop watching me."

"No," Cas tells him, easy.

"_Ugh_," Dean comments, and passes out.

In the morning, all the hurt that was fuzzed away by dizzy indifference has resurfaced in the form of ugly, boot-shaped bruises, a split lip, a cut on his cheek. Dean looks like a shitty, poorly lit anti-domestic violence ad, and Sam's seen it enough it doesn't apparently bother him anymore, which is great because Cas has decided to make up the difference by being utterly fucking wrecked about it.

He doesn't talk; he won't let Dean more than twenty feet away from him, and Dean's time in the backseat of the Impala, head pillowed in Cas's lap before Dean had fallen asleep, were oppressive with Castiel's unrelenting misery.

"Maybe you should show him another Disney movie," Dean suggests, pushing himself up when Sam pulls the car up the driveway to Bobby's, where Bobby is already on the porch glaring at them.

"The only other Disney movie I have is Bambi, and you said I couldn't show him that," Sam says, the car purring to a stop.

"This is bullshit," Dean tells him. "I told Dad I wanted a little _brother_."

And thus his giant baby sister is less than entirely gentle when he hauls Dean up the walk, up the porch steps, and past Bobby's increasingly black expression.

"You're a God damn idjit," Bobby tells him.

"Love you, too, Bobby," Dean says, blowing a kiss.

Sam's already stuffed him into the spare bed and tucked the sheets around him like Dean's going to try to crawl out and make a break for it — which: fair — when Cas busts into the room, looking hollow-eyed and scared and saying, "_Dean_."

"Cas?" Dean asks, and his voice sounds raspy. "What're you — ?"

"You weren't in the car," Cas says, and closes the distance between them, ends up sitting on the edge of the bed like his knees are week. "I woke up and you and Sam were gone."

Cas is clutching the sheets, and once upon a time, Dean might think Cas didn't feel like he could touch, but now he thinks maybe Cas doesn't trust himself not to hurt Dean like this, so Dean does what he always does and does something reckless. He worms a hand out from underneath the sheets, slides his palm over Castiel's fist, murmurs, "Hey, sorry, Cas — we left you there so you could get some sleep."

"I don't want sleep," Cas tells him. "I just want you to be okay."

"I'm fine, man," Dean promises, and underneath his hand, Cas turns his over, slow, slides their palms together, laces their fingers together. Jesus Christ, Dean thinks, this is gay as hell. "Seriously, Cas, I'm okay."

Cas just nods, mute, and Dean says, "Jeez, come on, get in here," and manages to untuck some of the sheets, enough so that Cas can slip out of his jeans and his sweatshirt and get under the blankets. He keeps asking if it's okay to put his hands there, if it hurts if he moves Dean's arm, is he okay?

"So is this also part of being human?" Cas asks, sounding lost, when they've finally rearranged themselves in the bed.

Dean doesn't know what to say, all the words stuffed up in his chest, so he just lets Cas clutch at him, far more tightly than is comfortable for his bruised ribs, and listens to him say, "I stabbed that woman seven times in the chest," and "The only reason I stopped is because Sam said he needed help," and "I hate this — I hate this — Dean, _I hate this_."

Mostly, Dean addresses problems by trying to shoot or fuck them, and since Sam would be all upset if Dean shot his new BFF, Dean changes lanes straight into fucking.

Or he would if Cas would let them get anywhere past seventh grade groping. At night, in the dark quiet of the spare room, Cas has started sequestering himself to the other side of the bed and Dean has some awful God damn flashbacks to being a lot younger and desperate and believing no sex could ever possibly be bad since it was _sex_.

He debates whether or not it's worth it to ask Sam, who'll make fun of him for approximately six decades but who actually gives a shit, but then when Dean limps down into the living room, he and Cas are watching fucking A Baby Story on TLC.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Dean mutters. He goes into the kitchen to find something to carry out an honor killing and finds Bobby already in there, cowering by the fridge with a beer in one hand and sneaking a cigarette in the other.

"You ain't supposed to be outta bed, son," Bobby grumbles.

"And you ain't supposed to be smoking, old man," Dean counters.

They frown at each other.

"Gimme a beer and I'll keep my silence," Dean says, and Bobby swears at him but gives in, handing over a Grolsch (Jesus Christ, _Grolsch_) and they do shit they're not supposed to in wary silence until apparently Sam and Cas run out of fat-free popcorn in the living room and wander into the kitchen.

"Fascists!" Dean accuses over Bobby saying, "This is _my house_," all to no avail, because Dean and Bobby are separated anyway, beer hidden and cigarettes flushed.

And Dean spends the next day mending and sulking, a combination of alchemical factors that apparently means in that night's iteration of the Dean and Cas have minor key arguments across the suddenly miles-wide bed, Dean turns into a total fucking _pussy_ and asks:

"So, you're done with me, then?"

The back of Castiel's head tenses. "What?" he asks, and his voice bounces off the wall before it echoes back to Dean.

"Done," Dean asks, and he feels weirdly disconnected from it, his brain and his body and his reflexes gearing up to go into neutral. This isn't new. He's done this before. He forgot for a little while in the middle but essentially, this is a favor for a friend, a transaction, no matter what Sam thinks or Walt Disney thinks or Bobby thinks or the four walls of this bedroom and so many motels think there's —

Cas rolls over, noisy in the quiet of the room, already frowning. "Done?" he asks.

"Your sexual education," Dean says, with exaggerated precision and too loud for just the two of them. "Yeah, Cas, you done with me?"

Once, when Dean and Sam were setting off bottle rockets at the edge of rock quarry somewhere in Appalachia, he hadn't gotten away fast enough and he'd been knocked back on his ass, hands burnt, light spots dancing in front of his eyes.

When Cas pins him, it feels the same way: dizzying, his balance fucked, disoriented and blurry, and all he knows is the fierceness in Castiel's eyes burning like the tail of a firecracker, leaving him hot and aching and used already.

"Dean Winchester, I will never be done with you," Cas growls at him, and when Dean opens his mouth to say something smart, the words vanish when Cas presses in even more closely, hisses, "I am not like the others," against his ear.

Dean gets so far as saying, "Ca — " before he's cut off, Castiel's mouth biting at his, wet and sharp and _hungry_, like he's been dying for this, like he's barely been holding back, and now someone disengaged the parking break.

Cas jerks Dean's shorts down, and they get lost somewhere by their feet at the bottom of the bed, lost among the linens. Dean had introduced Castiel to the miracle of lube a few weeks ago, and Cas proves he remembers by reaching under the pillow and grabbing a packet and tearing it open with his teeth, which, _holy shit is hot_, before there's a wet, cold touch at Dean's hip, one at the base of his cock, and then fingers, slipping between the cheeks of his ass.

Dean tries to say, "fuck," but it comes out more like, "_Fuuuuh-ah_ — Cas," and Cas hushes him, suddenly yielding where he'd pushed so hard before. He says, "I've got you, it's okay," and he strokes over Dean, the blunt ends of his fingers tagging the opening of him and it sends electrical impulses screaming up his spine, down his legs, and Dean feels the muscles of his thighs tense and lock and his throat choke out, "Cas, Cas," without consulting Dean first.

"I've wanted to do this for so long," Cas confesses, sliding down the bed, down Dean's body, pressing one big, hot palm over Dean's belly, holding him in place as he slips one finger in, quick, a little rough, to the second knuckle, and Dean curses. "I've known you, down to the atoms of you — but I've never touched you inside before, not really."

"Jesus _Christ_, Cas," Dean groans, in shambles already.

Cas draws his finger out, pushes another one in alongside the first, and it's been so fucking long since anybody's done this for him, just took him apart, easy and unhurried, and Cas is. Cas is rocking his hand against him, slick wet fingers filling him up, and Dean loves it, all of it, the teasing burn of it, how that reshapes and changes and shifts into something like an inside-out itch, so good, a slow burn. Dean rocks back to meet Cas's touch, each time, desperate.

"I knew you'd like this," Cas says, into the jut of Dean's hip, perfectly earnest, and it comes out like the purr of the Impala engine, a rumble against Dean's skin he can feel down into the bones. "I knew you'd be like this — can I put another in?"

Dean nods. He's trying for frantic, but he can barely move at all, all the tension suddenly gone out of him. He tips his head, boneless, and when he talks, he doesn't even have any consonant sounds to make, just low, whining conflations of pleading noises he hopes that Castiel can decode by now.

Something gets through, it must, because Cas gives him another finger, three now, scissoring him wide open, slow and slick. He just stays at the end of the bed, pushing Dean's knees up and open, stroking his thumb over Dean's perineum, curious. Cas is pressing — careful — on the inside of Dean, fingertips ghosting over his prostate and Dean's cock is hard and tight against his belly, leaving wet trails on the skin there and he's so needy and needful it's all he can do to beg.

"You're so flushed here, around my fingers," Cas murmurs at him, wondering, "it's like I can feel your heart beating from the inside out again."

God damn, Dean thinks, _again_, and then Cas finds his prostate, lingering this time, stroking over it easy, no pressure, just slowly coaxing the orgasm out of him, and Dean feels his ass clutch around Cas's fingers, feels the heat of Cas's palm against his skin and thumb at the back of his balls and Cas's free hand, stroking — easy — Dean's belly, not touching his dick, because there's no rush, this isn't a show, this is just for Dean, and —

"I want you to come," Cas instructs, his voice like the scrape of nails down Dean's chest, "just like this — just for me."

"Cas," Dean hears himself say, hands grasping at the sheets, at Castiel's hair, for purchase, for something, anything to hold onto. Cas just leans over him, sucks a wet, bruising kiss to the skin over Dean's hip like he _loves him_, like this _means something_, like he's _worshipful_, and keeps fucking him deep and endless and wet and lavish with his fingers, until Dean feels like a string on a violin, pulled tight and humming.

"I want," Cas says, like he's trying the words out in his mouth, "I want you always like this, just for me. I want you here, right here, pinned under me — you're not for everyone, Dean — "

Dean's sobbing now, his eyes are wet, and he can feel himself coming, the tight clench of pleasure like something blooming from the inside out, slow and unrelenting. The claustrophobia and compression of it, the way he feels held tight and pulled apart, is dizzying, makes his breath hitch, makes him throw a leg over Cas's shoulder and try to pull him in, pull him closer.

" — I found you," Cas concludes, says it in between sharp kisses to the inside of Deans thigh, and he catches Dean's eyes — blurry — makes sure Dean sees him, sees the intent on his face, before finishes with, "that means I get to keep you."

And that's it, that's all, show's over, folks, Dean doesn't even make a noise, just sighs outward like wind going out of a sail, striping his stomach, come puddling on his stomach, all the air punched out of him. Dean's shaking, his whole body still clenching around Cas's fingers, and he can hear himself whimpering, begging, "Cas, Cas," and Cas hushing him, kissing the inside of his knee, saying, "It's okay, I've got you, it's okay," because apparently Dean's been a good teacher, and Cas has probably always been an amazing student.

When Cas does slide his fingers out, he does it slowly, careful, and Dean mostly doesn't complain about it, or feel any regret, especially when Cas vanishes and comes back with a warm towel. He cleans him up, and when Dean makes a totally bullshit, completely abortive attempt to return the favor, Cas just folds their hands together, kisses Dean's bruised knuckles.

"But you're…" Dean starts, and trails off, Cas curling them together, and even though Dean can feel the hot press of Castiel's erection through his pajama pants, there's no urgency, not even a little tease.

"Funny thing about being human," Cas says into Dean's hair. "It does that a lot."

Dean hides his face in Cas's shoulder. "I'll do you tomorrow. Promise."

"You can do me whenever," Cas yawns, sliding a hand up Dean's back to close over the back of Dean's neck, warm. "I told you — I'm never going to be done with you."

That should keep him up all night, shit-scared, but he's feeling boozy and post-coital and good, the early, well-fucked soreness creeping in, and Cas's arm is heavy over his shoulder, and it just seems totally bullshit to argue with an angel about stuff like this when he could be sleeping instead.

***

After that, Dean figures if he's gonna do the right thing, he might as well go all the way.

It's fucking depressing how long it's been since he's bought condoms. In fact, it's almost as depressing as the fact that he waits until Sam goes to the fucking gas station bathroom, after they push off from Bobby's, to run up to the counter and throw down a 12-pack of Durex, lubricated and ribbed for her (fuck Dean Winchester's life) pleasure.

Except Sam's a nosy shit, so despite Dean carefully hiding them at the bottom of his bag, the condoms are unearthed anyway.

"You!" Sam says, holding up the box.

Dean stares at him. Cas is in the shower, water thrumming in the bathroom.

"Me," Dean allows.

Sam throws the condoms at him. "Why do you have those?" he asks, and before Dean can give him the birds and the bees talk, again, Sam presses on, "Are you cheating on Cas? This is horrible. Why are you _like_ this! I thought Cas was _different_."

"I — _what?_" Dean asks, feeling stupider than usual and the beginnings of a headache. "Why are you even in our _room?_ Why were you digging through my shit?"

"I have cracked heels," Sam says with dignity. "You have lotion."

Dean's headache gets worse. Yeah, Cas totally isn't getting laid tonight.

"I mean, you guys seemed so deeply, inappropriately, weirdly _solid_, you know?" Sam carries on, like his fucking parents are getting divorced and it's just super unfair to him, because now he'll have to spend one week at one house and another week at another house and his school events are going to be all awkward as hell. "Like, you guys _defied heaven_ for each other, and — "

Dean covers his face with his hands. "Oh, fuck me."

" — like, Cas _pulled you out of hell_ and this is how you repay him," Sam accuses, his lower lip sticking out, and Dean wonders, momentarily, how the fuck this ridiculous kid with a fivehead, a bleeding heart, and who talks with Dean a _lot_ about how he's so excited that Dean's dating someone Sam can be friends with, is the God damn chosen vessel for _Lucifer_. It's gotta be a paperwork error.

"Dude, Sam," Dean tries.

"Well?" Sam cuts him off. "Who is it? Is she worth it? Did you meet her at a _bar?_"

"Argh," Dean says. "Sam, it's _for_ us."

Sam goes bright red. "_Us?_ Dean, I — "

"_Me and Cas, us, you fucking pervert_," Dean yells at him, and Sam's face melts like a particularly hideous middle-aged woman experiencing a feeling. "Oh, Jesus."

"Wow, you guys really haven't — consummated, yet?" Sam asks in a hush.

Thankfully, Cas chooses this moment to come out of the bathroom, toweling off his hair, pjs slung low on his hips, and Sam gives Dean a pleased look, a squeeze on the arm, and says, "Have a good night guys, I hope it's really special, and — " which is about as far as Dean lets him get before he kicks his brother physically out of the room.

Cas just sits on the edge of the bed in dark blue sleeping pants and Dean's mostly destroyed Ramones t-shirt. "Why was Sam in our room?" he asks, yawning.

"He was snooping," Dean mutters, and pulls off his sweatshirt. He tips his head at the bathroom. "The water pressure in there okay?"

Cas shrugs, another recent addition to his body language, and Dean's perversely obsessed with what's in the bone versus what Cas learns. Castiel has always known how to shake his head in disappointment or how to stroke his fingers down someone's — Dean's — skin, possessing, but shaking hands and slouching and shrugging had to be taught, observed.

The shower's unremarkable but the water is hot, and Dean lets the warmth melt into his skin and under the muscle, wrap around him until he's breathed it all in before he gets out, shivering, and heads for bed. Cas is already there and asleep, the room dark, just light from underneath the motel room door shafting across the rumpled sheets to guide the way, and Dean sits on the edge of the mattress for a long time watching Castiel breathe — even and deep — before he gets under the covers.

He feels Cas's body jerk on the bed, his breath snatched out of his throat, and reflexive, Dean runs a hand down the line of Castiel's back, hushes, "Just a dream, Cas, it's okay," because Cas has been having a lot of those, recently, another side-effect.

All of Cas's muscles are pulled tight a long minute before he says, shaky and still facing the other way, "You're surprisingly good at this, taking care of people."

Dean presses a kiss to Castiel's shoulder, still tense through his shirt, and slings a hand over his chest, pulls him in close, until their bodies slot together.

"Don't spread it around," he mutters. "It'll ruin my reputation."

***

In Dean's defense, he legitimately doesn't realize he's been treating Cas like a john until about four months into it. Dean's relationship with tricking had been sort of vehicular and alleyway-based, so it's not really his fault he doesn't notice what he's doing until he's doing it, slicking a condom down Cas's dick with his mouth, when he thinks, _why the fuck am I doing this?_

The thing is, condoms taste like hell, and cornstarch, and the shitty, generic, oily lube they put all over the damn things, and Dean has never, ever, during a voluntary sexual encounter put his mouth on one. More than that, nobody's ever asked him to. Mouthing a rubber down somebody's dick is a great, great, triple word score great whore party trick, but like six sorority girls at OSU and a couple of under-eighteens who suck and fuck for a living know how to do it well and nobody God damn likes it but the john.

And don't ever let anybody tell you there's no way to wreck a blowie, because he freezes, Cas's cock halfway in his mouth, and that's when he freaks a little, or enough so that it shows.

"Dean?" Cas asks, his voice tight over Dean's head.

Dean tries to say, "Gimme a second, I'm fine," but when he pulls off to do that he forgets that condoms snap, and that it's possible that one, improperly put on, might liberate itself, and hit him in the fucking eye.

"Weren't you the one who told me if I was no good at something during sex at least be careful when you do it?" Cas harangues him, putting a towel full of motel ice over Dean's eye, which doesn't hurt as much from physical pain as crippling shame.

Earlier attempts to smother himself with a pillow and exit stage left having been derailed by Castiel's aggressive interest in keeping Dean alive, Dean just mutters, "Dude, shut up," and lets Cas baby him.

Cas gives him a Look, one he has to be picking up from spending way too much fucking time with Sam — Dean suspects they're becoming bros, which, _what?_ — and even though he doesn't say anything, there might as well be a neon sign over his head flashing, DEAN WINCHESTER WE ARE GOING TO TALK ABOUT THIS OR I WILL TAKE ACTION IN A MANNER YOU DON'T LIKE.

"I'm okay," Dean says a few minutes later, and tries for a leer more out of optimism than any conviction it'll actually work. "Want me to get you in the mood again?"

Cas's response is a beat of silent consideration, something unhappy in his eyes, and then a short shake of his head, no.

"You sure?" Dean asks, fingers tripping up the length of Castiel's thigh in an easy tease. "I'll make it good for you, man."

"Dean," Cas tells him, sounding suddenly very sad, "you always make it good."

Dean blushes, and like a reflex, he glares along with it. "Most people _like_ that."

"I am not most people, Dean," Cas intones, like Dean ever needs to be reminded of that, when all the things they don't talk about are filling up the space in the motel room as if Cas has unfolded his wings again.

Similarly, SORRY, CLOSED FOR ASSFUCKING must be written over Dean's head, because when he and Cas get to breakfast the next morning, Sam gives him one long look, nods to himself, and says, "Everything okay?"

"Great," Dean snarls, and orders a triple stack of silver dollar pancakes.

This marks the beginning of a post-sexual phase in Dean and Cas's interactions that must be what people who don't like each other but are stuck on a lease together experience. Sam still keeps getting two motel rooms, and it's not exactly like it's actually awkward, or anything, to share a bed and a room and a shower with Cas, but the furthest it goes from there is an occasional, lazy kiss, and Cas never pushes it beyond that, never tells Dean to take off his shirt or ask him for a practical demonstration of face-fucking or anything, and Dean doesn't know how to ask for it, either.

Cas had said he wasn't done with him, and wouldn't be, and Dean didn't know how to start that conversation, if he was even allowed, and they kind of staggered around each other like people trapped in a three-legged race going in opposite directions and trying to be polite about it. For a long, awful two weeks, Dean thinks this is going to be the new status quo, that they're going to be stuck with each other and each other's silences as the world ends and neither of them are going to do shit about it, and oh my God, if nothing else, what a total fucking waste of the dying days of humanity.

"Okay, that's it, what the hell is going on with you two?" Sam says over breakfast, finally, cornering him when Cas goes to the bathroom. "Did something happen?"

"What?" Dean asks, his voice an octave above normal range. "What are you talking about? Nothing happened."

Sam doesn't even bother to say anything, just purses his mouth.

"Shut up!" Dean snaps. "You don't know me!'

It's sad, even for Dean, and accordingly, Sam says, "So, what, you guys are broken up?"

"I seriously, seriously have never wanted to be an only child more," Dean mutters, which earns him a sharp kick to the shin, which is comforting, at least, because the alternative to physical abuse would be Sam trying to talk to Dean about his feelings and about his and Castiel's intimacy issues. And then, just as Sam looks like he's gearing up to make Dean talk about his feelings and his and Castiel's intimacy issues after all, sparking some sort of primitive, knee-jerk panic in Dean's gut, Cas mercifully returns from the bathroom, looking haunted and saying, "_Every surface in that restroom was wet_."

The Cas that crawls into bed with him at the end of the day is at once nothing and everything like the one that burst through the barn doors. Cas is clinging by his teeth and toenails to the last traces of his grace, that unknowable thing that makes him a half-beat off of the ordinary rhythm of humanity, clutching at the pinions of his wings. But he hasn't lost his intensity, the way he fills up the room like a vast shadow, or how when he catches Dean's eye, it makes him feel split open, examined — but Dean never stops meeting Castiel's gaze anyway, so maybe that means something. And now, he's also increasingly human, more commonly flawed: Cas snores and sulks, always uses up too much of the hot water, and Dean hasn't seen his phone since Cas discovered the visual cocaine of Tetris and fucking stole Dean's cell. Cas is a nerd, and despite being Dean's whatever, there's usually a 50-50 chance Cas will side with Sam in a fight, dick, and it might be fair to say that Dean harbors some feelings for Castiel, maybe has a soft spot for him, perhaps wants to sleep, unworried, in the spaces that Castiel carves out of the everyday grind of Dean's extraordinarily shitty life. Whatever this is, whatever it's been between them, it's been — and Dean can't believe he's saying this — it's been _intimate_, close, something shockingly easy and surprisingly constant.

Which makes it all the most fucking crushing how badly this is going, even though Dean can't believe he ever — even subconsciously — thought it could go any other way. Dean wants to keep Cas happy, wants to give Cas what he wants, only he doesn't know what that is anymore, and he's making himself crazy trying to figure it out, figure out what else he can do or what he can offer up — except —

Except it hits him like a two-by-four when the waitress comes over to top off their coffees, or a guy walks across the diner and Cas's eyes linger over the curve of her cheek, over the line of his back, and Dean feels clarity like that first starburst of pain at the beginning of a migraine.

***

"Oh," Dean says, when Cas bangs into the motel room later that night, "_shit_."

Cas tears off his trench coat. "Get on the bed," he snarls, slamming the door shut behind him and stalking toward where Dean's appropriated the bed nearest to the bathroom.

Dean swallows hard. "Ah, Cas, that's — "

"Fine," Cas says, even and deadly calm, "I'll make you."

He does, because he's still supernaturally strong, titanium in his arms and legs, cold fire in his eyes and Dean loses track of his breathing sometime in between Cas closing the space between them and shoving him down on the mattress, clasping his wrists tight enough to bruise and pushing a knee between Dean's.

"Dean," Cas tells him, "we need to talk."

"This isn't really a set-up for talk — "

"Shut up, Dean," Cas cuts in, fists tightening on Dean's wrists again, until he can feel the bruises set in, and that shouldn't make him dizzy and hot but it does.

"Okay," Dean agrees meekly, trying to stay as still as possible.

Cas narrows his eyes down at Dean. "I'm going to ask you questions, and you're going to answer me 'yes' or 'no,' am I clear?"

"Yes," Dean says, injecting as much sarcasm as he can into the word.

"Did you leave the bar without me on purpose?" Cas asks, ignoring Dean's sass entirely.

Dean pastes on a smile. "What, a guy can't get tire — " Cas growls at him " — yes."

"Did you send those people to talk to me?" Castiel snaps, precise with barely contained fury, and Dean looks away, over Cas's shoulder, to the windows with their tightly shut blinds and thinks about how he should have anticipated this, that nobody he knows can every just _take something_ freely offered and not talk the damn thing to death.

"Yes," he spits out.

Sam, for once, had been taken down by the local stomach bug like a weak gazelle and had been moping around his room, responding with every attempt to give him food or water or medicine with a low, raspy, "_fuck off_," and it was perfect, the perfect opportunity. Dean remembers the way Heather had been watching Cas, with desert-dark eyes and her gleaming red mouth, and it had been easy to palm the bartender a $100 and tell him to help get Dean's friend laid. It's been weeks, Cas is probably fucking gagging for it — lazy bastard still sucks at taking care of his own business, and who the _fuck_ sucks at taking care of their own business? spoiled God damn angels, that's who — it should have been easy, and he'd left, unworried, and headed back for the motel and the paradise of an empty room, a Dr. Sexy marathon on Oxygen and two bacon cheeseburgers and some chili fries.

"_Why?_" Cas asks, like he genuinely cannot fucking figure it out, and Dean's too angry all of a sudden to remember the yes or no rule, and he barks out:

"It's what you wanted, right? I mean, you don't want me anymore, and hell, you were undressing everybody with your fucking eyes tonight at the bar — forgive me if I try to do you a God damn solid, Cas!"

Cas stares at him, his mouth an angry bracket, and he grinds out, "Dean Winchester, you are _truly the most stupid man on the face of the Earth_ — "

Dean opens his mouth to defend himself or to tell Cas where he can take his God damn opinions and shove them.

" — I _love you_, and I want _you_ to _want me_," Cas concludes, and just like that, he's off the bed, hands off Dean's wrists, and the door to the room is banging open, Cas vanishing into the night, and Dean lies there, fucking bushwhacked, on the bed, staring at the water-stained ceiling wondering what the hell just happened there.

***

After that, Dean goes back to sleeping in Sam's room, and Dean knows he's only getting away with not having a conversation about that because Sam's too busy still puking up his guts every few hours.

Unfortunately for his brother, like an eight-year-old all-too-aware of the fact that his parents are teetering on the verge of hauling out dueling lawyers and fighting over the divan in the conservatory, Sam's the most awkward fucking member of their trio, post-fall out. The next seventy-two hours are a sustained hell of Sam's earnest — although blessedly silent — concern and Castiel's impressively subzero silent treatment.

The situation isn't improved by the fact that in the middle, they are attacked by demons. At least when Castiel is exorcising the shit out of some middle-aged farm wife, Dean figures he's too busy being mad about the apocalypse and his dad fucking off to who the hell knows where to be mad at Dean. Sam, on the other hand, affects a new mode of attack that involves throwing up on the supernatural, which makes exorcising them significantly grosser. It's at that point Dean says enough is enough and drags his entire dysfunctional family back to the motel so he can pour Pedialite, saltines, and reflexive mother hen behavior down Sam's throat and let Castiel ignore him some more.

"You and Cas need to talk," Sam croaks, having effectively evacuated the contents of his entire body in the motel bathroom, which Dean reflects glumly is also _his_ motel bathroom now. It's almost enough to make him brave room 6A, down the walkway, where Cas is probably angrily watching the Bible Channel, confusing himself, and hating Dean for being emotionally retarded.

Dean shrugs, runs a hand in big circles over Sam's big back. "Don't worry about it, Sammy — Cas is just a little mixed-up."

"About what?" Sam asks, sounding pitiful.

Dean frowns at him. "Are you seriously going to play twenty questions with me about this while you're horfing every twelve seconds, dude?"

"Distract me. Seriously, about what?" Sam groans, pleading and putting his head on the rim of the toilet seat, breathing roughly.

Distant, Dean says, "So, apparently, Cas loves me."

"Right," Sam prompts.

Dean's hand stops. "Did you not hear me?" he demands. "Cas thinks he _loves me_."

"So, what, did he say the L-word and freak you out?" Sam mumbles, not even bothering to lift his head. "Because seriously, Dean, it's kind of the eleventh hour here, and we're not a half-hour sitcom. You should probably get over your fear of fucking intimacy already."

"If you weren't so sick, I would beat the shit out of you," Dean tells him calmly, because it's true, and squirming, he mutters, "Anyway, he said something about wanting me to want him, and just fucking stormed out — what the hell am I supposed to do about that?"

Turning his head slowly, as if possessed, Sam gives him a rheumy eye.

"Well, do you?" Sam asks, his voice sounding _fucked_, and Dean figures they're stuck at this motel for at least another two days before Sam's going to be in any condition to go anywhere. "Want him?"

Dean blinks at him and realizes he doesn't really have an answer.

"Because that is baseline, Dean," Sam goes on. "That's — that's really basic, Dean."

"Sure," Dean says, because his silence is getting uncomfortable here.

Sam's eyes get sad. "Oh my God," he says. "That's horrible, you actually don't know."

"All right, time out," Dean interrupts, panicky, feeling something balling up in his throat, a whole long, internalized discussion about taking what he can when he can get it, because you never know when you're going to move on, or who's going to get fucking iced by a vamp, if you'll have another chance. Dean's a good hunter and he's a good hunter because he knows not to over think this shit. "It was just me helping him out and it got totally out of hand, okay? It's probably why he's confused — "

"Cas is _not_ confused," Sam retorts, and Dean cannot believe he's losing an argument to someone hurling up all their internal organs.

"Well he's sure as hell not in love with me," Dean shoots back, because that is the most God damn ridiculous thing he's ever heard, and Dean Winchester has climbed on the back of ridiculous and rode it all the way down to hell — literally. "And I was having sex with him, wasn't I? Isn't that proof enough?"

Sam glares at him. "You can't even answer my _question_, so I'm going to go with 'no.'"

"You know what? You can just handle this yourself," Dean says, pushing off the bathroom floor and throwing a towel at Sam's head. "I don't need this shit from you."

And he's about to make his totally righteous exit when he steps out of the motel room and right into Cas.

***

If Dean is totally honest with himself, which he avoids assiduously, he knows his sexual history is kind of a minefield. A lot of guys are whores, but he's _legitimately_ been a whore, and he can divorce himself from it most of the time, but it's easy to fall back into the rhythm. Sex is easier if you just give it to people; wanting it for yourself is a fucking nightmare at best.

And hell, Dean's easy. He'll take it where he can get it. Dean likes nice smiles and big laughs, dark-haired boys and girls and if you wink at him, he'll go, and it's not like it's a fucking chore. He used to think about it like freelancing; he likes fucking anyway, he might as well cover the rent in the process.

It's not fucked up, at least not on the level Sam would claim it's fucked up if — God forbid — Sam ever finds out, but he knows it's not good, that on balance, it's a Bad Thing. But he's always fed off of desire, someone else starting the spark, and Dean letting it catalyze into something more. There were guys in bar bathrooms and the odd closeted freak haunting truckstops, and mostly, Dean had felt sorry for them, but it'd been fun, too, at least for a little while, to blow off steam, and it's never hurt anybody, it's never hurt him, and God damn it, Dean's sick of feeling secretly shitty about it.

And he _does_ want Cas, as much as Dean thinks he knows how to want anybody.

Cas fell for him, in the big way; Cas helped Dean save his brother; Cas literally pulled Dean out of hell. Cas loves cheeseburgers and handjobs and more than all of that, and Dean's wanted to fuck him, wanted to for ages, but the way he's always understood the world it's not about what he wants, it's about what other people need.

Just because they're willing to give it to Dean doesn't mean he should take it, but this is different, this is Cas, and Cas is Dean's friend, Dean trusts him, and frozen there in front of Sam's door looking at Cas — he's an open book, no guile at all — Dean wants to wipe the worry off his face.

***

Still, Dean thinks, numb, that doesn't explain why he decides to open with:

"So I used to turn tricks. Sometimes."

Cas tilts his head to the side, reaches behind Dean and pulls the motel door closed behind him, so that they're alone on the walkway.

"I know," Cas says.

"_How_ do you fucking — "

"_Dean_," Cas interrupts.

Shaking his head, Dean mutters, "Ugh, whatever. Fine. Look, so I used to. Sometimes."

Cas shifts uncomfortably. "Dean, I know."

Dean makes a hand motion he thinks should be sufficiently explanatory about all of this bullshit. "So, you know," he says, shooting for offhand, except he sounds totally crazy even inside his own head. "Will you just — let it go?"

"I'm sorry if I," Cas starts, gaze darting away, skittering down Dean's legs and over his boots. "I'm sorry if I made you feel obligated."

Dean stares. "What?" he asks.

Cas meets Dean's eyes, and he's pissed about it, too. "I thought you didn't want to talk about this."

"I don't," Dean disclaims, "except that apparently you're _crazy_."

Cas's eyes bulge. "Me? Dean, if you didn't want me you didn't have to — "

"_Says the guy who stopped having sex with me first_," Dean hisses, urgent. "Dude, Cas, what the _fuck — ?_"

And this, apparently, is the breaking point, because Cas shouts, "I'm _not like them_, Dean! I don't want you to give me whatever I want just because you think you have to, or because you think you owe me! I'm not buying your time! I didn't give up my grace and I'm not losing my wings and I didn't make the choices I made so that you'd — "

Dean's dizzy, totally out of his depth, and it fucking figures that he'd get it now, finally, that he'd watch Cas's furious blue eyes and listen to him screaming in a motel in Greensboro and feel all the pieces slot into place, and know, from that clutch of heat in his belly, that he has an answer to Sam's question after all.

"Cas," Dean cuts in, sounding rough and broken open, "will you just — shut up."

"_No_," Cas retorts, fierce. "And I'm _so angry_ with you, because now all I can think about is how the world is ending and I'm _still_ technically a virgin and how you're the most irritating man alive, and — "

Dean takes a step toward Cas, because holy shit, he's hot when he's mad, and Dean tries it out, the shape of desire in his mouth, and he thinks about what _he_ wants, how he's wanted it, changed the equation so he's not trying to puzzle out how Cas might like it, and the world looks brand new and terrifying and acrobatic from here.

" — and despite my best efforts I still love you," Cas is still shouting, "and it is completely, totally _awful_. I haven't been sleeping. I stayed up all night watching something called The Soup last night, and frankly, I'm not convinced humanity is worth saving anymore, and — "

"Okay," Dean says, mostly to himself, shaky, "okay," and he leans in, fists a hand in the t-shirt Dean had bought him two months ago, and drags Cas down into a kiss.

Cas keeps yelling at him, all through the kiss, biting Dean's mouth in reproach and slicking his tongue over Dean's in frustration and he grips Dean too tightly, drags him in, slams him against the railing of the walkway and grinds into him. He's careless, jealous, and Castiel's nails scrape over his back and down his side and his fingers curl into the beltloops of Dean's jeans, trying to pull him even closer, trapping him between Cas's legs and holding him still.

"Don't do this if you're only doing it for me," Cas begs him, scraped out of his throat and desperate, and Dean hadn't even thought about how it might hurt to be on the other end of this, to get what you want and think you were the only person who wanted it, and he kisses an apology — lush — into the hollow of Castiel's throat. He says, "No, I do — this is for me, too, Cas, Jesus, I want you, you know that, right?" and Cas gasps out, "I do now," and drags him toward 6A, detouring twice to kiss Dean expansively against the ugly brick walls of the motel, pressing their palms together.

Dean's not entirely convinced about Cas's bullshit about losing all of his grace anymore, because the door to the room is barely shut before he's God damn shirtless on his back on the bed, Cas peeling his jeans down his legs, and Dean would make a really fucking tasteless joke about feeling cheap except then Cas puts his mouth on Dean's dick.

Cas is a ferocious cocksucker, and Dean doesn't know where he got that shit from, because Dean's always sort of perfectionist about it. Cas just goes to down, fist at the base of Dean's dick, sucking him off wet and messy and greedy, making abso-fucking-lutely filthy noises and running just the barest edge of teeth up the vein along the underside of Dean's cock, holding Dean's hips down on the bed and just eating him up.

"What do you want, Dean?" he asks, pulling off, his mouth bruised and red and Dean hears himself say, "Inside me — I want you to fuck me," before he's fully done processing the laundry list of things he wants to do. He should write it down, get it itemized, but then Cas is grinning at him — crooked — and Dean's too distracted by the way Cas is sliding up his body and snagging a packet of lube to think about details anymore.

When Cas's fingers — wet and rough and thick — slide into him, two at first, Dean just bites his lip and groans, curls one leg over Cas's arm, rolls his hips into it, wanton and desperate and he feels wide open already, like he's been ready for this for ages.

"Cas, come on," he moans, clawing at the sheets. "Come on."

"Hold on," Cas whispers, leaning down, the stubble of his chin scraping down Dean's chest, and Dean comes off the bed, his spine arched, when Cas closes his mouth around one of Dean's nipples and sucks at it, wet, bites down on it until Dean's babbling nonsense, feeling his ass twitch around Cas's fingers.

"Christ, _please_," Dean hears himself whining, and Cas mutters, "Please don't say that name in bed," before he ignores him, mouth leaving a wet trail down Dean's belly and his tongue dipping into his naval, into the crease between his hip and his thigh, before Dean feels a hot, nasty flick of Cas's tongue alongside his fingers, just licking him open, eating him out. "Oh, sonofa — " he manages, before it's all subsumed into a gasp.

Dean actually feels Cas grin down there, his mouth moving as he says, "You like this," and Dean thinks he _fucking loves it_ when Cas dives back in, three fingers fucking him open now, loosening him up, mouth lapping around the tight bud of muscle down there, leaving hot, open-mouthed kisses on the muscles of his ass before tracing back down, tongue stroking inside of him, fingers pressing and pressing and pressing until Cas finds his prostate and Dean feels the gut-punch of an orgasm pressing against the base of his spine for a half-beat before he comes, striping his chest and getting it in Cas's hair, jizz dripping down his cock onto Cas's fingers.

And Cas just chuckles, low and dirty — Dean adds that to the list of things he loves — and gathers it up, cum puddled on Dean's belly as he gasps for breath. He pushes it in along with his fingers, Dean's ass already orgasm-loose and sticky slick with lube and Cas's tongue and jizz now, too, the wet noise of it obscene, and Dean's moaning nonstop at this point, saying, "Cas, Cas, come on, please, please, just, please," while Cas just licks him up, licks him clean, swallows down every drop of spunk smeared across Dean's belly, on his hip, sucks his cock — very carefully — clean, while Dean whimpers.

"You _definitely_ like that," Cas decides, and Dean thumps his heels into Cas's back.

"I would like it better if you'd get up here and fuck me," Dean manages, but it comes out lazy, all the syllables molasses slow on his tongue, and right now he sounds as spoiled as he always thinks Cas is, so he goes with it.

Cas makes a noise like he's dying, and he groans, "_Dean_," before Dean's being kissed, hungry and slow and expansive, like Cas doesn't have plans to do anything else again ever. Dean just drapes an arm over Cas's shoulders, fingers knotting in the cotton of his t-shirt and lets him, because Cas might want to know what Dean wants, but sometimes, Dean just wants what Cas wants.

"Can I?" Cas asks, in between kisses, and Dean says, "_Yes_, come on, Cas," and Cas's hands shake when he presses the head of his dick in where his fingers had been — it's just the tip, but Dean can feel how wet he is, how hot and soft and much better than just a couple of digits — and Dean has to wrap a leg over Cas's side, murmur, "Cas, sweetheart, come on, fill me up."

Cas does, muttering, "_Fuck_," heartfelt, and bottoming out in one long stroke, until Dean can feel the teeth of Cas's zipper cold on his skin, the rough rub of denim on his ass, and it somehow makes this better, hotter, that Cas is still most of the way dressed, that he wants Dean so badly, and he's glad he came already, so he can just feel this, the way Cas's dick is fat and wet and splitting him open, fucking him out. Cas keeps saying Dean's name, sounding drunk on it, drunk on this, and he rocks back and forth between Dean's legs, languid, holds Dean down on the bed in a bruising grip like he's afraid Dean's going to do anything other than spread wider, beg Cas to fuck him harder, give him more, open him up.

He can feel Cas is close — hips stuttering, rhythm gone out the window — and Dean reaches down between them, closes his hand around his dick and rubs at it carefully, tilts into it every time Cas's dick tags his prostate and he says, "Harder, Cas, yeah, like that, right there," until Cas is fucking him just right, cleaving into him hot and greedy and barely pulling out before he plunges back in with a shove.

"Cas, Cas," Dean is saying, and he doesn't know why because all he want is _more_, nothing different, and he can barely think, it's so hot in the room and the air between them is charged up, sizzling on his skin. It's all he can do to keep his body strung tight and his thighs tensed so that when Cas slams into him, fucks him hard enough to send him skidding up the mattress he's braced for it.

And then Cas is cupping the back of Dean's neck, and Cas looks wrecked and red and sweaty, mouthing, "Dean, I'm going to," before he just leans in, seals their lips together, seals their hips together.

Cas fucks in and in and in, pouring himself out hot and wet inside of Dean, dick twitching and spilling come until it triggers some sort of chemical reaction in Dean's brain that's so good, like that first hit of ecstasy, that Dean gasps and sucks all the breath out of Cas's lungs and comes so hard it physically fucking hurts, the second orgasm stripped out of his bones.

"Was that good?" Cas pants, asks it into the curve of Dean's neck, stroking his shaking sides. "Is that what you wanted?" Dean nods, because his throat is parched, and he creaks out, "Yeah, Cas, that was — yeah," and curl up together to sleep.

When Dean wakes up, hours later, they're _both_ sleeping in the fucking wet spot, and his ass is sore and probably a mess and he thinks about kicking Cas out of bed to get a towel to clean them up, except that's when Cas opens his eyes and produces another erection and they're off again. Dean thinks with woozy, pleasure-slick satisfaction that he's going to have bruises on his wrists tomorrow from where Cas is holding him down to fuck him — sloppy, he can feel Cas's come leaking out, Cas's dick getting filthy with it — and the headboard bangs and bangs and bangs against the wall.

***

Sam, having unfortunately been in room 4A the night before, is actually _worse_ in the morning, and when Dean drops by to check on him, Sam slams the door in his face, shouting, "I _fucking hate you_."

"What?" Dean calls through the door. "I thought you wanted us to make up!"

Sam opens the door again, looking grim and green around the gills. "_Make up_," he hisses. "Not fuck savagely for six hours last night, thudding against my fucking wall."

Dean whistles. "Six? Wow. Record."

Sam slams the door again. Dean grins at the wood.

"Come on, Sam, get dressed," he says, knocking in an irritating woodpecker rat-ta-tat-tat. "We're goin' to Waffle House — think, _waffles_."

There's a long, awkward silence from the inside of the room before Sam says, "Gimme five minutes."

"Don't worry," Dean assures Cas later, when they've appropriated the corner booth at the Waffle House and are waiting on smothered and covered extra crispy hash browns with their All Star breakfasts and for Sam to get back from the bathroom, where he's probably throwing up some more, or, even more pathetically, going to extreme lengths to avoid eye contact with Castiel. "Sam's just jealous of our love."

Cas tilts one eyebrow up, and Dean wonders where he learned that. "Love," he repeats.

Dean clears his throat. "Yeah," he says, gruff. "Why, are you taking it back?"

"No," Cas says, easy, and closes his hand around his own mug of coffee. "I just wasn't aware it was on offer from your end."

Dean can feel himself blushing. "Well, it's there." He pauses. "If you want it."

Cas looks solemn at that, like he's giving it serious consideration, and it always makes Dean shy and feel like an idiot when Cas does that, go suddenly serious like a gathering storm, so he just looks at the table top and tries to fight a blush without much success. Cas lets him get away with it for about point two seconds before he reaches over and touches Dean's mouth, his thumb pressed into the corner of it, and when Dean hazards a look up again, Cas murmurs:

"I'll take it, all of it."

In the background, Dean can see Sam, just emerging from the bathroom, take a direct U-turn right back in. They're in a fucking Waffle House in North Carolina, Lucifer still wants to get in Sam's pants, the end times are upon them and Cas might lose his wings any day now, like they've both clearly lost their minds, but what the hell, it's the end of the world, right? Dean thinks, half-crazy, and he grins and turns to kiss the pad of Cas's finger, and say, "Great," against the whorls of his thumb.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The Girlfriend Experience](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3073133) by [dodificus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dodificus/pseuds/dodificus)
  * [Cover for "The Girlfriend Experience" by rageprufrock](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3115538) by [RunawayMarbles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunawayMarbles/pseuds/RunawayMarbles)




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